Help with understanding % cuts... they increase as you get lower?

[[Mo...]]

 

Terrible at math and need a very elementary lesson in percentage cuts. 

From what I read, 25 % is too high and generally the aim is 5-10% which equals a very slow taper. 

However, as I map out a proposed taper, starting at only a 5% reduction... the % gets higher and high at the end of the taper. For example in my last proposed two weeks the cut goes nearly in half (50%) even though I am taking the most miniscule amount off. I understand WHY this happens but not how the recommendation of only cutting 5-10% applies when you are on an extremely low dose. 

 

[[Wa...]]

You take the cut percent and multiply it by your “current dose” not your starting dose

[[Mo...]]

I understand that... but here is what I mean

Starting dose: .50

Reduce by .03 = . 47 which is 6% cut ... correct

Months later dose is .125

Reduce by .03= 24% cut... correct? 

[[Wa...]]

You should reduce by the percent you want to cut by, not the actual reduction amount. So if you want to do 10% cuts all the way down, you would do .125 times 10%, not the initial .03 reduction

[[mi...]]

@[Mo...] To keep the percentage the same the actual amount you reduce becomes smaller and smaller towards the end. So it looks like you are making good progress and then the progress slows down big time, it seems, but the percentage stays the same. Eventually when you get low enough you have to increase the percentage to get off or you will never get off, but it's best to stay with a percentage based taper as long as possible before doing that to assure the brain stays stabilized.

[[je...]]

5 hours ago, [[M...] said:

I understand that... but here is what I mean

Starting dose: .50

Reduce by .03 = . 47 which is 6% cut ... correct

Months later dose is .125

Reduce by .03= 24% cut... correct? 

What you're describing here is linear tapering, i.e. you're reducing by the same amount each time which is 0.03. This means your percentages will keep increasing. As the others have explained a percentage reduction means your percentage stays the same and therefore your value/amount you decrease by will reduce as you go lower i.e. 0.02 or 0.01.

[[Mo...]]

Understood. Ashton Manuel uses a liner cut then, no? 
 

[[Mo...]]

Is linear just as safe? Most of my cuts would be under 15% until the end when it becomes almost 50% to get off the last tiny bit….? 

[[je...]]

Yes, Ashton can be too aggressive for many people. For me personally I prefer percentages because I reached a limit where I got slammed with symptoms and it really helped to know what my upper percentage limit was. The thing is if you keep going linear and you hit a wall you never know what percentages you were able to tolerate and which ones sent you over the edge. It's so much easier to track symptoms and intensity and make corrections based on percentages. 

For getting off at the lower numbers I did this: 

 

[[ou...]]

Hi @[Mo...]. As others have pointed out, the aim is to reduce by the same fraction (percentage) of your CURRENT dose. However this doesn't hold for low doses. If keep cutting at a constant rate you can never reach 0. In order to stop completely, your last cut must always be 100% of your current dose. At low enough doses tapering does become linear. Here's an example:

From .50mg reductions of .03mg until reaching .29mg then
from .29mg reductions of .02mg until reaching .05mg then
from .05mg reductions of .01mg until completely stopped.

At first percent reductions range from 6-10% then from 7-29% and finally from 20-100%

Check this out for more information: https://benzobuddies.org/topic/273486-hyperbolic-tapering/